Fiends with Benefits by Johnny Peregrine

TITLE: Fiends with Benefits
AUTHOR: Johnny Peregrine
PUBLISHER: Phaze Publishing
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 35k)
GENRE: Paranormal erotic romance
COST: $5.00

Ben Watts is having a rough time. First he gets bitten and turned into a werewolf. Then his local pack gets called into Columbus by the vampire Master of the City – who turns out to be a Mistress, instead. When his pack leader gives him to Valda, Ben has no choice but to find a new life for himself. But it’s hard being a redneck werewolf in the big city. And especially hard when your Mistress feeds off you regularly, sends mixed signals galore, and expects you to protect her with your life.

I’m beginning to wonder how Phaze handles its editing. This is the second story I’ve purchased since starting this blog, and it’s the second story to make me cringe with all the mistakes in it. The author is in love with run-on sentences, with phrases being strung together with commas instead of semi-colons, or sometimes with nothing at all. It’s very difficult to tell sometimes when it’s internal observation rather than external – especially since the story is in 1^st person. His spelling can sometimes be unfortunate, as well; for example, cummerbund becomes “cumber bun.” Beyond obvious author errors, however, are the glaring editing issues. There is more than one paragraph where a sentence is repeated in different places, and one of them is clearly meant to be removed, while sentences like this – I even played with her fangs with my tongues which she found amusing and pulled back with a smile – just mean that nobody was paying that close attention to detail.

Struggling with all that makes it next to impossible to sit and actually enjoy the story. I did have another issue early on, in that it wasn’t the story I was expecting. The excerpt as given on the website is the first half of the first chapter, when Valda wakes Ben up and clearly has something for him to do. However, then the author jumps back in time to before Ben got turned into a werewolf and proceeds from there. We don’t hit the present again until ¾’s of the way through the story, and honestly, that wasn’t the story I wanted to read. I didn’t really care about how they hooked up together. I was more interested in what Valda clearly had in store for him. While I’m certain this affected my overall assessment of the novella, it doesn’t account for any of the technical issues that make it so hard to read. If anything, it just compounds an already existing problem.

Is there anything good about the story? Yes, a couple things. It’s refreshing to see vampires act like vampires, feeding off multiple people and not worrying about who they kill. Ben was mildly entertaining as well. I liked his kickass attitude, even when it got him into trouble. The secondary characters were relatively distinct, too. You don’t always get that, especially in novellas. But in the end, it’s just not enough. Maybe if someone had taken the time to really go through this and correct it, it would stand a fighting chance. Right now, it’s down for the count.

Readability	2/10 – Riddled with editing mistakes, run-on sentences, and spelling errors, this was a nightmare to try and muddle through
Hero	5/10 – In spite of the weak prose, I kept wanting to like Ben.
Heroine	5/10 – Nice to see a vampire being a vampire, but there’s not enough of her in this to get a well-rounded picture
Entertainment value	3/10 – All the technical issues made it impossible to read this story for pure enjoyment.
World building	6/10 – It’s a valiant effort, but ultimately, unbelievable. Details don’t always a world make.
TOTAL:	21/50

Something Wild by Sable Grey

TITLE: Something Wild
AUTHOR: Sable Grey
PUBLISHER: Cobblestone Press
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 24k)
GENRE: Shapeshifter historical erotic romance
COST: $4.99

Jack the Ripper is on the loose, and Detective Baden Sikes has been called in to solve these grisly murders. What the officials don’t realize is that Baden has his own dark secret, one he hopes he won’t have to unleash in order to find the Ripper. When he catches a would-be thief on the street, he takes her home in a gesture of good will. Cora is a survivor, and he responds to her innate goodness in ways that surprise him. But can he resist the temptation she presents before it’s too late? For either of them?

Before I say anything about the story, I have to say that this cover is one of the scariest I’ve purchased this year. Scary bad. I know it’s supposed to be Baden, but to me, it’s a frightening cross between Johnny Depp and Michael Jackson. It freaked me out enough when I first saw it that I almost didn’t read the blurb. It took everything I had to block the image out as I read the book, so that I could give Baden a fighting chance.

I know Cobblestone has had this Shifters series for a while, but this is the first one I’ve bought. I always thought that they were standalone stories, with a shifter as its main character, but after reading this, I’m not entirely convinced of that. To start, there’s a prologue on the front of this story with Baden’s housekeeper witnessing a scene with an old blind woman. I waited the entire story for this to play into the primary plot, but it never happened. A rune of destruction is mentioned, but none of that is ever brought up again, which, for someone new to the series, is a massive flaw. It left me questioning more than I should, and when I go back to look at other stories, I just don’t see how they can all be connected. They run the gamut in regards to genre. And yet, if this isn’t related to the series, what in hell does it have to do with anything else?

Those kind of questions don’t come until after I’ve finished the story. For the most part while I was reading it, I enjoyed myself. The prose is simple and clean, and nothing jars too much as being out of period. I was even able to tolerate the couple instances of headhopping. Baden is likable, in spite of being a little brusque, and if Cora is a little too good to be true, I’m mostly okay with that. The author builds the romance between them realistically, without anything happening too fast, so that when passions finally do explode, I believed it. The erotica is simple but direct, not overwhelming in the least, nor unfortunately all that memorable. The focus is more on the romance, which somehow seems right for these two.

When things began to unravel was the final chapter and resolution of the story. I won’t spoil what happens, but I finished the story completely disbelieving how it could have finished the way it did. Oh, it’s an HEA, no doubt about that. But the success of the plot’s solution relies on one fact – that the heightened sense of smell Baden has, and utilizes throughout the story even in human form, fails him. I don’t buy it. At all. Maybe if there was explanation of his shifting abilities, or less attention paid to his heightened ability throughout the story, I could’ve believed it. As it was, the entire ending of the story failed to work for me so utterly that I didn’t even care about the romance anymore. It’s a shame. There was actual potential in this short little story. In spite of its godawful cover.

Readability	8/10 – Mild head-hopping only slightly detracts from mostly readable prose.
Hero	7/10 – Solemn and mysterious, his enigmatic appearances intrigue enough to keep my interested.
Heroine	6/10 – Not a damsel, but I’m never completely sure why all the men fall for her.
Entertainment value	5/10 – I was actually rather enjoying myself with this, until the ending disappointed me enough to drag this score down.
World building	7/10 – The world of late 19th century London is believable, though I have no clues at all about the paranormal aspects of it.
TOTAL:	33/50

Unbreakable by Sydney Somers

TITLE: Unbreakable
AUTHOR: Sydney Somers
PUBLISHER: Samhain Publishing
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 72k)
GENRE: Paranormal erotic romance
COST: $5.50

When her lover and partner dies in her arms, cop Jordan McAdam’s life is changed forever. Absorbing some of the essence of the demon that killed Gage, she takes a new direction and becomes a Rogue Destroyer, intent on killing off the Shadow demons that stalk the earth. She’s not prepared when Gage shows up five years later, however, alive and hunting demons himself. With a new threat on the loose, can they work together to stop it? Even more, can they get past the pain of their separation to start over?

On first glance, this seemed exactly my thing. I love urban fantasy. I love heroines who kick ass. I love reunions. But by chapter two of this book, I seriously contemplated not bothering to finish it at all. Only my own stubborn nature kept me plowing through.

Before the real story even starts, before the prologue, the author provides a little history into the creation/source of the Shadow demons. It’s told in third-person omniscient, kind of like a formal lesson: Four thousand years ago an ancient civilization was marred by a history not unlike our own past… Then, the author has a prologue on top of that, where the reader gets introduced to Jordan and Gage and has us seeing him die in her arms. So before she ever gets around to modern day, she’s had over 4k of story told, of information dumped into my lap in not necessarily the most graceful manner. Even more gets dumped in the interminably long first chapter (almost 5k). And my attention is lost. It’s too much. I have little doubts from the way she presents Gage’s death in the prologue that that author intends this to be suspenseful, action-packed, and yet, by the end of the first chapter, any tension she could have built is gone.

It’s not just the information dump that’s at fault here. While there aren’t enough spelling or grammar mistakes to make note of, there are constant missing articles like a or the, or prepositions, even added verbs once in awhile. It’s like somebody was only skimming the story in editing, instead of reading it word for word. On top of that, the author makes the decision midway through the first chapter – after having been entirely in Jordan’s perspective for the entire prologue and first half of the first chapter – to switch to Gage’s POV. We get their first face-to-face with Gage seeing Jordan for the first time in 5 years –when he knew she was alive – rather than the much more dramatic, and more emotionally invested, perspective of Jordan’s. Why? I don’t get it. Why toss away all that potential drama and water it down by letting the reader know about Gage too soon? It completely didn’t work for me, and any ties I had to the story were loosened enough by that point so that as it progressed and the characters alternately annoyed or bored me, they disappeared altogether.

About two-thirds of the way through the story, the author starts to really find her stride, balancing action with character scenes with exposition far more gracefully than she did in the beginning. For me, however, it’s too little, too late. I couldn’t help but feel that this should have been a first draft. The beginning feels too much like the author in search of her story. When she found out, she should have gone back and chopped off all the extraneous stuff in the beginning and found more strategic ways of placing it throughout her story. She wouldn’t have lost me as a reader then.

Readability	6/10 – A massive information dump at the top of the story along with editing issues throughout had me fighting not to skim by a third of the way through the story
Hero	6/10 – Consistent, but nothing original to catch my attention
Heroine	6/10 – The anger gets really old and heavy-handed after awhile.
Entertainment value	3/10 – Boredy McBored. The elements are there, but by the time the author got around to finally presenting them in a way that engaged me, I didn’t care anymore.
World building	8/10 – Considering how much information is dumped on the reader in the beginning of the story, it would be impossible not to know this much about this world.
TOTAL:	29/50

Straw Into Gold by Nina Merrill

TITLE: Straw Into Gold
AUTHOR: Nina Merrill
PUBLISHER: Amber Quill Heat
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 20k)
GENRE: Fantasy erotic romance
COST: $5.00

A weaver who recognizes her womanly wiles. A father who drunkenly tells the king his daughter can weave gold from straw. A horny goblin. It’s Rumpelstiltskin for the erotic romance market.

I read the excerpt for this out of curiosity more than anything else. I’ve read a few fairy tales gone adult, and I wasn’t entirely sure how this could be anything new. The excerpt was in first person, from Rumpelstiltskin’s point of view, as he watched Bella get it on with the captain of the king’s guard. And I thought, Damn. This is going to be all voyeuristic. I gotta get me some of that.

Well, the excerpt was a tad misleading.

The author switches between two perspectives, both told in 1^st person. First is the heroine, Bella, the miller’s daughter, who’s being held by the king because her oh so wonderful father bragged about her being able to turn straw into gold. Bella is a bit of a slut, all too aware of her feminine wiles, all too willing to use them to get whatever she wants. I can’t really blame her for much of it; after all, if she doesn’t make this gold, she’s going to get killed. If my choices were flirting or death, I’d be flashing my cleavage at anybody remotely interested, too.

The other perspective is Rumpelstiltskin, and he is one horny little devil. Sometimes, ickily so. His first demand for payment from Bella is the chance to suckle milk from her breasts, and when he doesn’t get that (not from lack of trying on his part), he settles for jerking off while watching her with the captain (the excerpt I had read). We’re not meant to like Rumpelstiltskin, I’m pretty sure, and it’s pretty easy to be a tad repulsed by him. But when half the story is told from his POV, it’s difficult for some of those feelings not to carry over into Bella’s sections, especially when she’s slutting it up.

That lowers my overall appreciation for the fun in this story. I would have been more than happy to hear the whole thing from our horny goblin’s POV, or just Bella’s. The sex is reasonably hot, and while some of her metaphors – keeping with the fantasy spirit/escapism of the whole thing – don’t work for me, I can overlook them to simply have fun. But don’t read this for the romance. That is most definitely not its strength.

Readability	8/10 – Varying 1st person POV’s actually isn’t that jarring once it’s established, though some of her metaphors are a little unfortunate
Hero	4/10 – It’s a fairy tale. Since when does the hero really have a personality?
Heroine	6/10 – Spunky with a side of slut.
Entertainment value	6/10 – Parts of it were hugely entertaining, others highly uncomfortable
World building	8/10 – For rewriting a fairy tale, the details worked for me.
TOTAL:	32/50

Spirits Shared by Jory Strong

TITLE: Spirits Shared
AUTHOR: Jory Strong
PUBLISHER: Ellora’s Cave
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 40k)
GENRE: Paranormal ménage erotic romance
COST: $5.20

Jessica and Clay are engaged to be married. The only problem is, Clay has just informed the woman he loves more than anything that he’s bisexual, and he can’t be satisfied with only her as a lover. Somehow, someway, he needs to incorporate a male into their relationship, or worry for the rest of his life that he’ll succumb to his desire for another and lose her trust. A storm sends them off the road, and they are rescued by Native American Tekoa. Tekoa’s spirit has told him that Jessica and Clay are the mates which he’s been praying for. Now they just have to take it slow and get to know each other, in their attempts to find true happiness.

Maybe I’m a cynic. This certainly isn’t the first soulmate story I’ve read, and while I know it’s not the last, the fact that I’m about to say how this didn’t work for me either is going to lead people to think that maybe I shouldn’t be reading soulmate stories. After choosing this story on a recommendation from someone else, I’m beginning to wonder if maybe I should start considering that suggestion a little more seriously.

In spite of headhopping, there’s nothing really wrong with the author’s writing style. She uses terminology that isn’t to my taste, but it’s certainly mostly effective in putting together a hot scene, or building suspense as the story progresses. Where it began to fail for me – other than the headhopping – was in some of the character choices that had me rolling my eyes. Like the fact that Clay refers to his penis as a separate entity in lines such as, He arched his hips slightly to press his cock into her cupped hand. “He’s a big fan of yours too.” or “If I weren’t afraid of him catching pneumonia after all he’s been through today, I’d pull these sweats down so he could greet you properly.” It definitely doesn’t help that Jessica encourages this kind of talk. I always find this juvenile, I’m afraid. The only guys I ever knew who talked like this were in high school and college.

Then there’s Tekoa’s talk about breeding. That’s his word, not mine. The Thunderbird’s spirit urged him to take her to her hands and knees and breed her. Because he keeps talking about knocking her up. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t find it a romantic notion in this situation, especially when he’s only just met the woman. It objectifies Jessica in a way that bugs me, and makes me lose respect for him as an individual, even if it is a cultural thing.

My dissatisfaction with the two men probably contributed to my reluctance to buy into any of the spiritual connections. I wholeheartedly believed that Clay loved Jessica. That Jessica loved Clay. That both of them were incredibly attracted to Tekoa. But the entire aspect of the Thunderbird soulmates rubbed me the wrong way. The Creator leaves two cups on Tekoa’s mantle, signifying his blessing for the threesome. After Clay drinks it, Tekoa denies that there’s any drugging influence, but then he turns around and is adamant that Jessica has to drink hers; otherwise, they can’t be joined. Obviously, it’s a ritualistic thing, but the way it’s presented reeks of taking the choice away from Clay and Jessica’s control, and it makes it much, much harder for me to invest in their emotional bonding then.

I’m glad this story works for some people. The writer knows how to write, and if the story’s not entirely to my taste, that’s hardly her fault. It might be worth it for me to keep an eye out for her future releases.

Readability	7/10 – Relatively clean prose loses impact with headhopping and character foibles that pulled me out of the story
Menage	6/10 – The sex is hot, but the emotional/spiritual connections are hard for me to buy as a ménage.
Characterization	6/10 – Solid enough, if not enjoyable for me
Entertainment value	5/10 – Without being able to connect emotionally, it was difficult to overlook annoying aspects of the story enough to enjoy it more.
World building	8/10 – For as much as I didn’t believe it, the author still managed to show me what the Thunderbird mythology was like.
TOTAL:	32/50

Sweet Revenge by Peggy Hunter

TITLE: Sweet Revenge
AUTHOR: Peggy Hunter
PUBLISHER: Whiskey Creek Press Torrid
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 25k)
GENRE: Contemporary erotic romance
COST: $4.99

For 15 years, Allison has nursed the hurt that the only guy she has ever loved took her to prom simply to have sex with her. Now on the eve of her wedding, she needs to get Randy Gallagher out of her mind, once and for all. She buys a single night with him at a charity bachelor auction, but has she started something she can’t stop? Suddenly, she’s not so sure.

I need to mix things up when I read. If all my choices were only werewolves, or gay erotica, or historicals, I would get bored very quickly. That’s why I deliberately chose a straightforward contemporary romance for today. After the headache I got reading the last book, I wanted something simple.

Simple is what I got. Too simple, actually. With only the price to go by, I knew this wouldn’t be a huge long read, but I didn’t anticipate being as bored with it as I was. Revenge scenarios can be a lot of fun if handled well, but there was little in this story to truly engage me.

Allison’s motivations remain unclear at first. When they are finally revealed, their shallowness drove me to look for enjoyment elsewhere. First, I tried Randy. You know what? He’s a jerk. He calls women, “babe,” which is a major turn-off for me, and he freely admits to simply wanting to sleep with whatever woman catches his eye. Supposedly, he’s changed his mind by the end, but I don’t believe it for a second. Neither he nor the heroine do anything that merits such a change of heart except have sex. For a guy like Randy, sex must equal love. Not for me.

I tried getting immersed in the story’s plot and/or voice instead then. But while the author has a simple, readable style, there’s nothing original about it. It doesn’t help that the storyline is predictable either, all the way down to Allison’s wedding and the events that transpire afterward. In the end, without any one thing to keep me hooked into the story, I read just for the sake of killing time. Looks like I got bored mixing it up anyway.

Readability	6/10 – Simple prose, unencumbered by anything very challenging, though the occasional word misuse mars it
Hero	3/10 – Forgettable and kind of a jerk
Heroine	6/10 – A tad dim, and enough of a wet noodle outside of Randy’s presence to make me prefer her sister
Entertainment value	3/10 – It left me bored and annoyed, not a great combo
World building	6/10 – Fairly average, with nothing exciting or vivid to draw me in
TOTAL:	24/50

The Seagrass Whore by Ellen Ashe

TITLE: The Seagrass Whore
AUTHOR: Ellen Ashe
PUBLISHER: Forbidden Publications
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 40k)
GENRE: Paranormal romantic suspense
COST: $4.99

Leena has the Sight, which has only gotten more acute since a bad car accident a year ago. When her fiancé Colin takes her to Calloway Cove to meet his estranged father, she gets caught up in the sight of a ghostly woman with blood on her hands. The legend of the Seagrass Whore captivates both her and her future father-in-law, even more so when it looks like the old love story about a woman falling in love with her husband’s father might be repeating itself. Together, they try and free the ghost's soul, and at the same time, save their own.

The cover of this book captivated me. It was haunting and sensual, and though the title and excerpt threw me a little, I decided to try it anyway. I thought it might be worth trying something a little offbeat for a change. Offbeat is probably the best way to describe this in the end.

The prose is…uneven. That’s probably the best word. There are sections where it’s very lyrical and flows well enough to suck me in. Then there are sections where it feels like reading a grade school primer. I don’t know if this is the author’s style since this is the first title of hers I’ve read, but it almost seems like she’s trying to obtain a haunting voice to match her haunting subject matter. If that’s the case, it only worked for me half the time.

The other half, I was too busy trying to figure out what was going on. Characterization is all over the place. Most scenes – especially between Leena and Cole, the father – have such a dizzying array of emotions that I can never tell what the scene’s true intent really is. I really liked Cole in the beginning; the author set him from the start to be this great anti-hero. By the time the real meat of the story hit, however, I started wondering what was going on with him. It doesn't help that the writing suffers in some of the more intimate scenes; I've never seen a hero purr so much that wasn't a shapeshifter. That feeling only got worse throughout the climax when it felt like Cole was saying one thing, doing another, and thinking something completely different, none of which was meshing or explaining the other. It climaxes with the very last scene of the book, which I refuse to spoil, but I walked away from the story unconvinced it was a happy ever after, or even a happy for now.

I really liked the idea of mirroring the tragic events of the Seagrass Whore with the triangle of Colin/Cole/Leena, but ultimately, it didn’t work for me. I had nobody to connect with, or respect, or even empathize a little for. Colin is trashed from nearly the get-go, while Leena and Cole suffer from behavior that borders on unstable. Maybe that was the point. I’m not sure. But I don’t buy escapist fiction to spend hours afterward wondering what I had just read. I buy it to get sucked into the story. I’ll settle for getting sucked into the haunting cover of this for now.

Readability	7/10 – Lyrical prose gets hindered by poor pacing and inconsistent characterization
Hero	5/10 – Compelling for the first half, then falls apart with ambiguities
Heroine	4/10 – Other than her Sight, I never know much about her, and if the ambiguous ending means what I think it does, I have even less respect for her.
Entertainment value	5/10 – A fascinating concept fails on follow-thru
World building	4/10 – In spite of interesting prose and some interesting ideas, the details fill in the wrong kind of holes and leave me trying to imagine what’s going on.
TOTAL:	25/50

A Dangerous Craving by Amy Redwood

TITLE: A Dangerous Craving
AUTHOR: Amy Redwood
PUBLISHER: Cobblestone Press
LENGTH: Short Story (roughly 13k)
GENRE: Contemporary erotic romance
COST: $3.99

For the past thirteen weeks, Chloe has gone to the same shop, at the same time, and stolen a single flower, all for the adrenaline rush of getting away with it. For her, the rush is better than sex, and it only gets better each time she escapes without getting caught. Except she has been caught. By Daniel, the frustrated painter who is running the shop while his sister recuperates. Chloe just doesn’t know it. When he decides to take matters into his own hands, she’s not ready for his plan of seduction…or is she?

A Dangerous Craving does, in my mind, what a lot of short, sensual pieces currently on the e-romance market fail to do. It uses its brief space in time to offer a unique perspective on a couple of not-your-typical leads in order to create a portrait of sensuality that so intrigued me, I actually went back and read it a second time. I don’t do that. I don’t have time. But I haven’t read a short story like this in quite a while, and I wanted to savor it.

While this is most definitely an erotic short story, the author chooses to build the tension using sensory descriptions of the flowers for a good part of the first half. There's a juxtaposition between appreciating a flower and appreciating other things that resonated for me. There was even a time there where I wondered if they were going to have sex at all, if maybe all of this was about finding satisfaction by other means. Surprisingly, I would have been more than okay with that. The author’s prose is smooth and elegant, evocative without being over the top. I was fascinated by the responses of these two people to such simple objects, enough so that when more “romancey” elements got introduced, I almost resented them.

The hero and heroine are far from the norm as well. Chloe is a kleptomaniac, with obvious disdain for her co-workers, girls nights out, things that would typify a lot of single working women. Daniel has a controlling streak he uses to manipulate Chloe into getting what he wants, and while he tries to justify it in the end by saying going the unconventional route was the only way to get her to agree to see him, I firmly believe that some of the power games they played in the flower shop will continue long into their relationship. Beyond the flower foreplay, my favorite erotic scene was a small moment where Daniel orders her to take off her clothes, the better for him to sketch. His distance combined with her excitement/frustration and translated into a very intense moment for me.

The story’s not perfect. The author headhops, though not often and not jarringly. I find myself with too many questions about outside aspects of the flower shop – Daniel’s odd relationship with his sister, what Chloe’s real animosity is toward her co-workers – to feel truly satisfied, too. Beyond that, however, it’s a little gem. If you’re interested in some elegant sensuality with offbeat, edgier characters, this is the story for you.

Readability	7/10 – Mild headhopping, but elegant sensuality helps to compensate
Hero	7/10 – Though we don’t know much about him, there’s enough of a sinister air about him to make him interesting.
Heroine	7/10 – Edgy and more interesting than a lot of short story heroines tend to be
Entertainment value	8/10 – A unique approach and sensuality that appeals on more than one level elevates what could otherwise be a forgettable story
World building	7/10 – The flower shop is painted extremely well; it’s the other aspects of the story that suffer
TOTAL:	36/50

Dark Waters by Gabriella Hewitt

TITLE: Dark Waters
AUTHOR: Gabriella Hewitt
PUBLISHER: Samhain Publishing
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 70k)
GENRE: Contemporary romantic suspense
COST: $5.50

Frankie Montalvo has inherited a rundown plantation on the island of Vieques, but running from no life in New York City finds her having to deal with the locals’ terror – the chupacabra. Everybody thinks her home is cursed, but she’d determined to make a go of it, enlisting the help of the only man who seems willing to help, Rico Lopez. Rico is a special agent on extended leave, on the island looking for a young female cousin who’s gone missing. He doesn’t expect getting embroiled in Frankie’s nightmares when it’s clear something is going on, nor does he expect to fall for her. But he does. On both counts.

When I was in the early chapters of this story, I got thrown back in time. To when I was ten years old and I would steal/borrow my grandmother’s gothic romances. You remember the ones I’m talking about. The one where the poor relative is about to marry into the family unwanted and someone is trying to kill her, or the girl inherits a haunted house that happens to be on a cliff, or…well, you get the idea. I remember being enthralled and terrified, which might explain my later-in-life proclivities for thrillers. This story felt like an updated version of one of those. But the comparison stops there. Because I never felt the same sense of involvement that I felt for any of those gothics.

While it has the earmarks of Samhain’s typically clean presentation, the author’s style is brief and choppy. Sentences are short, and while they might be descriptive, they lack any emotional resonance to draw me into the story early enough to make me care about either the characters or the suspense. The author’s insistence to try and complicate her plot by introducing a new character almost every chapter only had me guessing as to what long-lost relative would pop-up next. Not even halfway through the book, I was so bored that it took everything I had to even finish the story. And really not surprised with how it turned out.

It might have helped if I’d gotten to get emotionally involved in either of the leads’ lives. Rico’s characterization is better than Frankie’s for me, but that could be due to the fact that I thought Frankie bordered on dumb. The author tries to justify some of her less intelligent choices – literally, sometimes with sentences like this: Sometimes smart had to take a backseat. – but that didn’t make me like Frankie any more. It just made me roll my eyes. A lot of the scenes between the two leads didn't have a smooth flow, either. Scenes felt like they were all over the place emotionally, and I could never settle into a single emotion long enough to latch onto the story.

I think in the end, it’s the author’s voice that made the story fail for me. It’s simply not my taste. That’s not to say it won’t work for someone else, though. The idea of revisiting gothics in a modern setting is appealing. I just wish this story could have done that for me.

Readability	6/10 – Choppy style and poor pacing made it difficult to stick with
Hero	6/10 – Some attempts at depth, but the lack of personal detail made it hard to feel anything for him
Heroine	4/10 – One of those heroines who borders on too stupid to live for me to like
Entertainment value	3/10 – It’s been a long time since I was so bored by something that was supposed to be suspenseful
World building	6/10 – There’s a definite feel for the island life, but I never got a real sense of the fear that’s meant to be such an integral part of Casa Verde
TOTAL:	25/50

The Average Girl's Guide to Getting Laid by Annie Dean

TITLE: The Average Girl’s Guide to Getting Laid
AUTHOR: Annie Dean
PUBLISHER: Loose Id
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 81k)
GENRE: Contemporary erotic romance
COST: $6.99

Travel writer Ellie Campbell made a bet with her best friend that she could write something interesting. The result was a sales pitch to her agent for a book called, “The Average Girl’s Guide to Getting Laid.” Now, however, Ellie has to actually write the book, and the problem is, she has no idea where to start. In a deli in New York City, she gets hit on by the gorgeous Marius Asher – Ash to everyone who knows him – and she decides to take the experience and run with it. What she doesn’t expect is to get sucked into his life, or to realize that maybe a month-long fling wasn’t what she wants from him after all.

If I didn’t think it before, I do now. Annie Dean is officially on my auto-buy list. Of course, it looks like she’s moving into print, so I’m going to have to rely on Amazon to buy her stuff, but kudos to her. With an original voice and interesting characters that ring of truth, she’s got a real career in front of her.

In spite of my huge enjoyment for the author's voice, however, I was a little apprehensive going in to this book. Frankly, I get tired of seeing blurbs that look like excuses to have lots of sex, and there are a lot of them out there. There’s a time and place for those kind of stories, and I do get in the mood for them, but most of the time, I want a plot that doesn’t have anything to do at all with needing to have so much sex in a specific time period, or proving a point by having sex with the one you shouldn’t, or sexbots gone wild. The initial angle of this plot was more of the same – and a good part of the early to middle conflict – but an interesting development occurred.

I fell in love with Ash.

There. I admitted it. By halfway through the book, I would have gladly stepped up to the plate to fill in for Ellie when she was being a total boob about the whole situation. My heart broke when his did, I got frustrated with him, I felt it all. I know that he’s the type of character that would annoy some women I know. Frankly, he exudes player vibes more than once in the story, not to mention that he’s a tad on the rude and abrupt side when he thinks he’s losing control. But getting to see him in a wide variety of settings, from work to his family to his friends to Ellie, created a rounder picture that had me okay with some of his less than desirable characteristics. They made me understand those behaviors. Even better, he showed growth as the story progressed. And did I mention he was hot as hell?

Ellie, on the other hand, wasn’t quite as appealing to me. Her whole Earth Mother routine got a little too heavyhanded for me after a while. It’s really no wonder Ash falls for her. She waits on him hand and foot. She cooks, she cleans, she puts his needs first, she’s sexually open. Why shouldn’t he want this woman in his life? Oh, that’s right. She’s supposed to be the average woman. Um…no. Didn’t buy it. She did everything just a little too well for me to believe that.

I probably didn’t like her as much, either, because I thought some of her behavior – with her “work” as her so-called defense – was childish. Deserting Ash in the middle of a baseball game to chat up a guy for a few innings in the name of research? She deserved everything she got after that.

Still, when the ending rolled around, I had the biggest smile on my face that I’ve had in a very long time as a result of an e-book. It was romantic, completely in character, and made me melt. A tremendously satisfying read.

Readability	9/10 – Sharp dialogue, great description, highly readable
Hero	10/10 – Some people might have issues with some of his occasional boorish tendencies, but I haven’t loved a hero this much in a long time
Heroine	6/10 – The earth mother routine gets a little old, as does her constant complaining about being average when I don’t really believe it
Entertainment value	9/10 – Completely caught me up, and the ending had me giddy for a good hour after I finished
World building	9/10 – Dean’s prose and attention to detail makes even the mundane stand out.
TOTAL:	43/50